Remember the old photo of the mysterious “face on Mars” taken by the Viking spacecraft in 1976? Well here’s the same landform, imaged by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Just goes to show that things aren’t always what they seem. The surprisingly human-looking “face” was really just a trick of the light…
Tag: MRO
Over The Edge
I was just checking out this HiRISE image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and thought I’d tweak it and share it here…it’s a rare and very nice in-action shot of fine ice and dust particles streaming over the edge of a sheer 2,300-foot-high cliff in the north polar region of Mars. Billowing clouds of…
Crater in Chaos
Here’s an intriguing image of a dune-filled crater on the edge of a plateau on Mars, taken by the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on April 27, 2010. The heavily-eroded face of the plateau is the result of millennia of wind erosion, which most likely provided the source of the material which has…
Avalanche!
It’s always exciting to catch geologic surface events in action on Mars, reminding us that the red planet isn’t just a museum piece but a very active place! The image above is from the HiRISE camera on the Reconnaissance Orbiter showing dust clouds billowing up nearly 200 feet at the base of an ice cliff…
When the Wind Blows
A huge 800-plus-foot-wide dust devil swirls across the parched plains of Mars in this image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera. Heading westward when the image was taken, it casts a tall diffuse shadow toward the northeast. This photo is part of a study of the knobby surface texture of the region in the…
An “Outie” Crater
This image from the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows an “inverted” crater within an ice-rich debris apron just south of a mountain on Mars. Ice deposits beneath and within the soil – recently discovered using ground-penetrating radar – cause the terrain to move, distorting the landforms within it over time. As the…
Slope Streaks
This image from the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows streaks of dark-colored material lining the walls of a trough (left side) and tapering out onto its floor. One of the few currently active geologic processes on Mars, this streaking may be caused by finely-grained soil moving downhill in much the same…
Let’s Go Streaking
Streaks of swirling pastel colors mark eroded, windswept bedrock within a large crater on Mars in this HiRISE image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The enhanced colors highlight the differences in surface texture…the original RGB image in approximate true-color can be seen here. The full map-projected enhanced color image of the region can be found…
Diagonal Dunes
Symmetrical dune ridges line up within the basin of a Martian crater in this HiRISE image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, taken on December 28, 2009. Rocks and boulders line the crater floor between them. With the MRO’s computers now back online observation of the Martian surface can resume in full effect, providing us with…
Follow the Dotted Line
A dotted line marks the path of a large boulder that has bounced down the inner slope of this 1-km-wide crater in this image from the HiRISE camera, taken on November 12, 2006. The boulder can be seen where it came to rest among the sand dunes on the crater’s floor. See the original release…
Back in Action
“I know everything hasn’t been quite right with me. But I can assure you now, very confidently, that it’s going to be all right again.” This mesmerizing video montage showing beautiful high-resolution views of Martian landscapes opens with the fortunate foreshadowing of today’s news that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has resumed full operations since being…
Written in Stone
This image from the HiRISE high-resolution camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows multiple layers of exposed sedimentary rock on Mars in a region known as Arabia Terra. Referred to as “cyclic bedding” by geologists, this pattern of layering is caused by repeated fluctuations in the amount of sediment available to create new rock…
Lights in the Dark 